The present invention is generally directed to the forming of signatures to be gathered on a binding line from a roll of paper that is narrower than presently used, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for producing these signatures of a closed end type that also have less wrinkles therein.
In the production of signatures, a plurality of webs are printed on one or more presses and cut into ribbons to be utilized in forming the signatures. The ribbons are typically delivered to a common point for ribbon merger after the webs have been printed on the presses. By merging the ribbons at the common point, a composite is provided which is then utilized in forming the signatures for gathering on a bindery line. An improvement reducing the required width of the original roll of paper, but still able to produce the webs and ribbons as described herein, can potentially result in substantial dollar savings as well as a reduction in generated waste paper. However, there are significant problems inherent in the environment of the press room and bindery in terms of material handling systems. It is especially important that any attempt to reduce the width of the original roll of paper take into consideration the manner in which signatures are handled in both settings, the press room and the bindery. More to the point, the signature must remain stable, if they are to be capable of being handled by automatic material handling systems.
There are presently much wider width presses in service that produce large counts for individual signatures. For example, the average page count per signature is up from 48 pages several years ago to 64 pages today. Therefore, making such a reduction in paper usage becomes even more desirable.
One problem with folding wide width paper webs into folded webs which are merged at a common point is that of reducing gusset wrinkles adjacent the folds. Dancause U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,996 is directed to solving the problem of how to reduce gusset wrinkles. The present invention is directed to reducing the width of paper web while still producing signatures that are substantially free of gusset wrinkles.